Marc Yao: Agriculture in Africa

Hi, my name is Marc Yao Kwame. I work on a cocoa plantation in West Africa that I was sold to for five dollars to work. I work from six o’clock in the morning until six at night. I have to carry the bags of cocoa beans on my head because they are taller than I am and are really heavy. If a farmer thinks I am not working hard enough or when I fall, I get beaten. 18 other workers and I sleep in one room together on wooden planks, where they feed us burnt bananas.  There is only one hole in this room for receiving fresh air and once we enter our room for the night, we are not allowed to leave.  When we need to go to the bathroom, we have to go in cans in the room.  We do not get paid with wages, but we get to live here and eat in exchange for the work. I do not see my mother or father, and my brother works on another plantation, so I am also unable to see him. Working in the forests, I get a lot of cuts and scrapes that go untreated, which happens to everyone that works here. I wear rags to work and am given a machete to cut down the cocoa pods.  Since the machete is so large, I often get cuts and injuries from that, also. Because I have to work, I do not go to school, and probably will be working here for the rest of my life.